My Account
July and August saw two periods of exceptionally heavy rain that fell for extended periods of time. This resulted in fire brigade callouts across all areas to flooding and storm damage. I hope some of you heeded my earlier pre-winter advice to clear out drains, etc. to prevent water egress to properties. If not, bad luck, I hope that you got through ok. As the old saying goes, ‘prevention is better than cure.’
The recent earthquake in Italy probably puts things into perspective and is a stark reminder of how fragile life can be. At the end of the day, having wet feet is not much of a problem in comparison. The people of Christchurch will have a good idea of what those in Italy are going through. We in the north, perhaps less so. However, the earthquake a couple of weeks back that was centred off the east coast of the North Island was remarkably close to home for us. At magnitude 7.1 this was quite a sizable shake. My research indicates this was in the top 10 earthquakes in NZ history, considerably larger than the Christchurch shake of 2011 and also greater than the above-described Italy shake. However, the distance from the mainland and the depth of the quake meant we were saved from the major destruction and devastation experienced elsewhere. Hoorah! But for a slightly different location and depth, this could have been a very different result.
This raises the question of how well prepared we are for a major catastrophe such as this. Hands up everyone that has an emergency kit stored away for such an event. Don’t worry, my hand stayed down as well. I guess it has just been laziness on my part. What’s your excuse? Well, that doesn’t mean it’s not too late to put one together now. So what do we need? A large, secure bin to start with. These are cheap and can store and transport easily. In it, store bottles of water for drinking and maybe washing, non-perishable food (if canned, don’t forget a can opener), torch, radio, extra clothing, blankets, toilet bucket and sanitizer. Maybe even a few dollars stashed away just in case eftpos etc is knocked out for a while. For more complete details, you can refer to the Civil Defence website getthru.govt.nz
Also, put together a family plan of what to do if a disaster happens. If communications are knocked out, maybe a prearranged meeting point will be required, or some sort of signals of special meaning (I don’t mean smoke signals, although this would no doubt work!). Roads could be obstructed or blocked, so plan for an alternate person to pick up or mind the kids, etc. And don’t forget the pets.
Setting up the above is neither costly nor time consuming, so what’s the excuse now? There isn’t one. In fact, I’m off to do mine now and I will probably find room to stash a couple of cans of beer in the corner, just in case!
